Better Looking Hardware

Creations & Ideas
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I’ve taken Sonic Pi on board as the brain of my performance setup - OK not actually performed yet to anyone else apart from ourselves :slightly_smiling_face: But with lockdown lifting here, hopefully soon.

I’m envious of the people who have the interesting looking eurorack setups. I don’t need one but can’t deny they look the part. Then I have a gray laptop and black and white midi input devices.

Anyone got any ideas about how to liven things up? I was thinking that Raspberry Pi have more inventive things - like that lurid green Pi Top ‘laptop’ case, but I don’t think they make that any more. With a standard RPi I still have to have a office-style standard looking monitor.

Mac built their fanbase with stylish design, but a Mac still looks like a computer built for business, so not interested in that kind of tasteful styling. However rounded the corners are.

A while ago I asked about the Axotolti core and saw a picof one built into a wonderful old piece of electronic test hardware.

Any ideas - please go wide.

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Ha ha problem solved :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Anyone else?

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Hmmm. Well, circuit bending offers an enormous amount of creative hardware :wink:
Here’s a fun example:

And one of my favourites, from Look Mum No Computer: The Furby Organ :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Ha ha brilliant :smiley:

Ok fair enough I did say ‘go wide’. But maybe we could go a bit narrower. I’m going to use the computer so something to jazz that up visually. @samaaron has his space control centre look, I need something more portable!

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@hitsware fantastic suggestion to become an live, projected, animated band. Thank you so much :smile:

Maybe a colourful Raspberry Pi case and/or monitor?

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For portability, I’ve looked at the Pi cases you can mount to the VESA mounting points on the back of a monitor. Or you could go with one of the RPi screens and a funky case. Throw some neopixels on the case and tie them into some visualization software? If it fits with the aesthetic, there are cases that have built in studs to add lego creations to them.

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Thanks! The VESA mounts are practical but straight into ‘Office Hardware’ as the law says that all HDMI screens have to look sedate :smiley: So I ruled that out.

I’m going for the 7" official RPi touchscreen and its case in vibrant red. I’ve tried SPi in 800x480 for a bit and it’s workable. I also will be running some PureData patches, and these work well too - I can design them to fit to the screen elegantly.

How well the touchscreen works, I will find out. But even if it’s a flop, I know that a combo of mini keyboard/mouse/midi controller will work.

When it’s done, I’ll report back with some pics.

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Here it be…running SPi and Puredata patches together. All the sound is from this one box, recorded as-is. The mini keyboard works really well, has a mousepad built in and everything.

What you can’t see on the vid is a couple of midi controllers that work everything in play.

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Hi @soxsa

Bravo ! For the machine and the music :blush:

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